CP 4 Life

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What Defines You?

February 12, 2013

What defines you?

Think about your life and what you are to other people and the people who care for you. I did this recently. I deciphered that I am an athlete, a friend, a teammate, a leader, a colleague, a teacher and most importantly, a footballer…… oh yeah, and I have CP. Which one of these character traits holds the least sway in my life……CP!

Which holds the most? I went through them, and I’d like too share that with you.

An Athlete: I am a footballer (soccer for those who haven’t caught up) and it is the greatest love and passion that I have in my life. It will always be a part of me and in many ways defines me as a person. Some people are teachers, businessman, doctors, soldiers, construction workers. I am a teacher by trade; it is how I earn a crust. But if asked what I do, I say I am a footballer who teaches, not a teacher who plays football.

A friend: My friends are all massively important to me, and I them. The people who I have in my life I have for a reason; because they make me a better person. I have fun with them, laugh and have a ‘mint time’. They love me and in turn I love them. I’d give them the shirt off my back if they needed it, and they would and have done the same. That is what a true friend means to me.

A teammate: I have enjoyed the best time with my teammates. We have shared the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. I have had the best nights out bar none. The bond that you gain with your teammates is indescribable, and you can only know that if you have experienced it. I am truly honoured and I consider it a privilege to have played alongside the mates that I have.

A leader: I have had the opportunity to captain my country. Now I don’t want to rabbit on about that because it often sounds like I’m bragging, but let me explain. To watch the growth and the succession of yourself by younger players (which I perfectly natural with youth) that you have mentored gives me the greatest joy in my life, none better than Ben and Jack my fellow bloggers. My hat goes off to you both fellas.

A teacher and colleague: I love being a teacher. It brings me happiness to be able to see the learning of my students and know that I did that. I teach in the public education system in Australia and the teachers who I work with are the most dedicated, caring and loving people I know. They are the reason I enjoy the hard times in my professional life, and by crikey they’re funny.

About the CP, well, it really doesn’t define me. I know that it is always there and that I may look a bit funny sometimes and I’ve been guilty of this before, but we focus on it too much, and not the other fantastic things that make us the people that we are. When was the last time you thought about your CP as opposed to thinking about the last time you thought about what your friendships mean to you and your friends?

As I said before, I’m a friend, a teammate, a leader, an athlete and a footballer who teaches. Oh, and I sort of have CP….kinda.

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Cerebral Palsy High school Survival Guide

February 5, 2013

Now I know you have read Ben’s article on how he struggled with school and being the kid with CP, and that time of his life seem to be the worst and that you don’t want that. Well my time at High School I didn’t enjoy too much either, but that wasn’t because of bullying or I felt alienated by my peers, it was just because I didn’t like school. Other than the fact I had to go to school Monday-Friday for the next 6 years, my high school career was great and ill tell you why and how I survived high school for you younger kids with CP who are daunting the thought of that first day of high school.

Now this is just my story of how my high schooling days went. I’ve never given this advice to anyone else, never tested it on someone with CP, so this could be the best advice you ever read, or alternatively could be a bunch of crap.

First of all, don’t get me wrong, I was nowhere near the most popular kid in school or funniest or any of those things that help people ease through high school, I was just average I guess. So the first bit of advice I want to give you and probably the most useful advice that helped me is ‘if you cant laugh at yourself, why bother?’

If you can’t take a joke or even tell a joke relating to your CP in slightest, then you will struggle, big time and not just in high school but in your future workplace and et cetera. If you find it difficult taking a joke about it or telling a joke about (ill explain that later) then look at it from this perspective; you have CP, it’s not going anywhere, you going to have forever, it’s not going to ever, ever, ever change, so why not make the most of it. I know that might seem harsh but you need to understand all of what I am trying to tell you, so you can learn to accept yourself. Otherwise it’s going to be the only thing ever on your mind, you will lose all confidence and high school will turn to shit. (Excuse the French).

So confidence is a main point, you need confidence for what I’m about to share… The way I coped through high school, some might say was cruel, but to me, it was just a bit of entertainment.

You have CP, so technically you are disabled, which also enables you a lot of power. Now you can use that for good or bad. And as I said before, I didn’t really enjoy high school overly that much so I might’ve started using these ‘powers’ for bad, to spark up my day. So your most useful weapon of choice in high school is the thing I like to call the ‘disabled card’ (I’m going call it DC from now on just so you know). As a person with CP, you can call on the DC anytime you want. But I must warn you, when you bring out the DC, it’s a make or break situation. The two outcomes of the DC are;

1. The teacher feels like you’re a priceless Faberge egg, and they will treat you like one, this is the outcome that occurs 90% of the time,

2. They can tell your just having a bit of laugh, and you essentially make yourself a target. But the power does not stop there.

Even if the worse of the two outcomes does happen, you still hold all the power essentially. For instance they make a slight joke that could be taken the wrong way, you purposely take it the wrong way, therefore you’re back in full control. Now telling you all this information, I had a fantastic relationship with all my teachers and I only used these powers when I was feeling a bit down, or on an overly cocky substitute teachers who had to be put back in their place.

Now I’m going to give you an example of how to apply it:

A sub walks in, so they have never seen you before, they don’t know the school every well, but as most young substitute teachers are, they are fresh out of their degree and think they are this cool, hip, modern teacher who can change your life in 80 minutes. WRONG!

So you’re just sitting there maybe just talking to your mate or whatever and they ask you do something like take some textbooks and hand them out to the rest of the class. Now you very casually play the DC. (Now either you’re sitting down or in my experience if someone doesn’t know me, they cant pick I have CP unless they have a good look, so they cant tell you have CP at all). Now the teacher will go on about how insensitive you are saying you’re disabled because they think you’re not, and you will continue to argue until someone else says, ‘Mr/Miss, he is disabled…’. Now when that happens, you have just won a golden ticket, and that teacher will now do one of two things, avoid you for the next 80 minutes or the much more entertaining outcome, they will suck up to you like a starfish on a rock, which is hilarious. This is all because with your CP, you hold the power and no one can ever take that from you.

You are reading all this and thinking how is this going to help me outside the classroom. Well you may win a few friends from it because they think you’re funny, but that is not your goal. Your goal is to show everyone you have confidence, you’re not embarrassed of your CP and that you hold the power. People now have no reason to ever bully you about it because you are confident, you don’t care what people say about it. You’re essentially bulletproof, invincible, this is how you want your high schooling days to go, this is how to survive high school.

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Don’t let yourself get walked over

February 2, 2013

Don’t let yourself get walked over, men and women!

Every relationship should be a positive for you. If you’re not happy in it, then it’s not positive for you. If the other person is happy with it, then OK maybe it is positive for them and by making it positive for them means you may derive pleasure out of it. I get that, and that was certainly true for both of my romantic relationships, but it became about making them happy, and that made me happy, but it doesn’t last, unless it’s reciprocated.

We are selfish, I think all of my cobloggers have mentioned that from time to time. I want to be clear that it’s not the sort of selfish where it becomes detrimental to others or climbing the social and professional ladder stepping on others selfish. But if you’re not happy in relationships, then it will only be to your detriment.

Stay true to yourself and your own moral and ethical code. We all have one. If you can’t think of one immediately, stop, turn off your phone, your radio, iPod, iPad and computer screen and think; what is my moral and ethical code? What do I hold important in my life for me?

This goes for business and personal relationships. In some of my relationships, it’s been a lot of giving of myself emotionally, financially and professionally that went against my code, and a lot of taking by the other person. It made me happy to give things such as; love, advice, friendship or loyalty, but in the end, if that wasn’t given back, any one of those things, it won’t work for you, as it didn’t and doesn’t work for me. As my fellow blogger Ben said, you need to be a leader in your relationships. Shape and mould the direction of those relationships so that they work equally for both parties. I’ve found that in relationships you need to be more proactive and more productive in the things that you value and push those for yourself. Now I’m not naive, I know that to make a relationship work there needs to be giving and taking, but never let that be to the detriment of your morals and ethics.

My friend, who is quite a successful businessman said to me once “Chris, a mistake is only a mistake if you do the same thing twice.” Now I know that every person, myself very much included, have made mistakes in relationships whether they be personal or professional. Learn from those mistakes, own your failings and then you can learn from them. My first romantic relationship was a diabolical stuff up, financially, emotionally and professionally. But I’ve learnt from that and now have re evaluated my moral and ethical boundaries when it comes to romantic relationships.

If its not good for you, and you know that it goes against your ethical code, then you need to talk about that in a productive way with your partner, business colleague, or as my business partner Ben said; talk to yourself.

Be selfish in relationships, because by being selfish then you can give all of yourself. A common misconception in my eyes, giving of yourself does not mean giving up your values, yes your values are part of yourself, part of your identity. But you don’t have to go against your values or your standards just because it’s going to benefit the other person. It will be more beneficial for you to have that conflict. Don’t be afraid of conflict, I was always afraid of conflict, afraid of the outcome of conflict, so I didn’t go there or push that hard, but we’re human, it will eventually eat away at us.

For me the anger of a certain thing would manifest itself into an explosion about something unrelated to the main anger, because the main anger or issue was the hardest to deal with, because it was the issue that revealed my true emotions, and to show your true emotions is scary, daunting and even taboo. Throughout my dealings with a range of people, it’s the people who open up and show their true selves that others and I gravitate to. If your nervous, say your nervous. Scared, say your scared, excited, show that. Because if you do, people will gravitate to you, its raw, but in the end, its real! Enjoy your relationships, because they are what count. Not how much money you earn, or what can you drive or what you wear, but who you are.

Chris

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Cerebral Palsy and the dreaded bench press | Part 2

Aside

Check out part 1 here

A few weeks later, Dad and I are in the gym, I’ve discovered I can’t do a push up, a chin up, can only arm curl the bar. So basically I’m restricted to doing my machine-based program, while Dad continues with his free-weight program.

I refuse to accept the fact that I’ll never be able to do a free-weight exercise. I plead with Dad, “I want to do bench-press again”. Dad replies, “Why? Just enjoy the machine-based exercises. Don’t worry about the free-weights”. I refused to accept his answer; I needed to prove to myself that I could do it. “I need to do it!” I state. He concedes defeat and I struggle through eight repetitions with no weight on the bar.

I continued focusing on my machine-based workout, while trying to improve my bench-press over the subsequent weeks, solely driven by the idea of being able to do just one repetition with some form of weight on the bar. I had to prove to myself I was normal (my description of normal was fundamentally whatever an able-bodied person could do).

Then it happened. The moment I’d been waiting for since I’d started my weights program. Dad loaded the bar with a 2.25kg weight on each side. I gripped the bar with my left hand, followed awkwardly with my right. Dad lifted the bar off the weight rack; I lowered the bar to my chest (unassisted might I add). Then I pushed it back up to the starting position. I’d done it! I’d finally conquered what felt the only way to describe the emotion I’d felt is to compare it to winning the World Cup. I felt invincible.

From then on, I was determined to conquer any exercise Dad could do. I was addicted to this emotion, regardless of how long it took be able to do just one repetition. Initially, I worked on my push up; which took me about 4 months to be able to do three reps with good form. Followed by my chin up; try gripping a bar overhead with hemi-plegia, and proceed to pull your whole body up over the bar.

I can’t describe the ecstasy I felt. The way I think of it is; when I was starting out, if you told me I could do a chin up within a year and a half, I would have laughed at your face, told you pigs could fly, and also informed you that you were delusional. All in the same breathe.

Today I’m not satisfied with doing just one rep on the bench press with just the bar.

I’ve just recently set a few personal bests; three sets of eight repetitions with 50kg on the bench-press.

3 sets x 15 repetitions of chin-ups

3 sets x 22 repetitions of push-ups.

Now I’m constantly striving to be stronger, fitter, faster and smarter.

Weight lifting has been the most frustrating but also the most exhilarating activity I’ve ever done.

Just because you’re physically handicapped doesn’t mean you can’t set the same standards as ‘normal’ people.

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on January 31, 2013

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Cerebral Palsy and the dreaded bench press | Part 1

January 29, 2013

Hey guys Ben here,

This story is so raw and honest, my Mum and Dad didn’t even know about it until last week.
I’m 15 years old and have just got home from being punched in the face by a classmate. It’s only the second time I’ve ever been physically assaulted. I deserved to be hit though, I was annoying this kid to know end. We were standing outside the classroom, I was bored so I thought it would be funny to unzip his bag, I can tell he’s annoyed and tells me to stop. I do it another couple of times. I see how far I can push him with one more try; he turns around and swings at my jaw. I’m in shock, he starts laughing, a couple of other classmates see what happen and have a small giggle. All I wanted to do was cry. I tried to stop myself but a couple of tears escape my conscious barrier.

“Are you crying?” a classmate questions. I reply defiantly, “No!” I can’t show weakness, not here, I’ll be the laughing stock of the school. I think I’ve successfully hidden my feelings and emotions, deep down though, I feel embarrassed and defeated. I’ve become quite good at hiding my feelings. Whereas in reality, I’ve just buried them deeper and deeper into my subconscious so they can simmer there, but I reassure myself that I’ll tell dad what happened.

I arrive home, my parents ask; “How was your day? My consciousness resists the urge to state the obvious, and reply with a simple: “Good”. The feeling of regret arises, I should tell them. I’m too embarrassed to tell them though. Then I confirm to myself, “I’ve missed my opportunity”.

I go into my room and cry, several negative self-doubting thoughts flow through my consciousness; “I’m weak, I’m dumb, I’ve got CP”. I’m sick of feeling sorry for myself!

I walk into the lounge room and sit at the dinner table. I hear something outside and glance into garage. I see my dad in there, doing a set of chin-ups. I’m inspired. I’m sick of feeling sorry for myself. I can become stronger. I put on my shoes, walk into the garage and plead to dad, “Can I exercise with you?” Dad replies excitedly, “Definitely”.

I do a few warm-up exercises and then look at the bench-press. I think back to when my mate Mitch stated that he can bench press 40kg. I think to myself; “Well if Mitch can bench 40kg I should be able to knock out a couple of sets with 20kg”.

I think, “Realistically I’m probably half as strong as him”. I lay down on the bench and dad lifts up the bar. I grip the bar quite tightly with my left hand. I try to grip it as tightly with my right hand. Dad releases the bar, my right hand buckles under the weight instantaneously.

Dad reassures me, “It’s alright”, and takes off the ten-kilo weights and replaces them with two kilo weights. Still my right hand buckles; “Surely I can’t be this weak!” I think to myself. Dad proceeds to take off the two-kilo weights and says encouragingly, “Try it without any weight”.

I’m crushed, angry and frustrated with myself. I want to cry. I’ve just been hit in the face and now I can’t even bench press two kilos. All sense of self-confidence is sapped. “What’s the point?” I think,

I finish the session by doing all machine-based exercises; which don’t have as big an emphasis on grip strength as the free-weight exercises. My CP is magnified in this environment. Every repetition reminds me of the difference in strength between my left side and right side.

Dad says, “It’s not that important to be able to do bench-press or free weight exercises, machine based exercises are sufficient enough”. I’m determined, now driven to prove him wrong. “I will be able to bench-press 40kg one day”, I think to myself.

Read Part 2 here!

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CP 4 Life, CP Fitness

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CP Football: my journey part 2

January 26, 2013

Jack here;
Further on from my previous post;

Changing my perspective on how I saw the game, opened up a whole world. Seeing how Chris played the game, allowed me to truly understand what football was and what must be done to achieve at the most elite level.

After the National Championships, I got offered to come to a National camp (Aussie team), which increased my likeness for football even more, now that I could picture what my future might hold.

I still remember my first camp, it was the toughest experience in my entire life, physically and mentally. It seemed to be 100x more intense then any state camp, but I had never enjoyed football more. I was operating out of excitement, nervousness, fear, rather than physical fitness. I had never experienced anything like it. I was so physically and mentally exhausted but had never felt more energetic. This is the moment in my life that changed my entire view of football. I was playing and training with the people who were the best in the country at the their craft. This was the moment I decided football is going to be one of the biggest things in my life. Not because I needed to progress with my footballing career, because I wanted to. I wanted what my teammates had and I was going to get it.

A couple years later, I am now 15 years old, and this could potentially be the year that changes my life forever. I had progressed from a development player to pretty much a squad member, and that year was the first year that I was eligible for team selection. I had absolutely nothing to lose. I was training longer and harder than ever before. All wanted was my name on that team sheet. That was all my mind consisted of; I thought football was the only thing that mattered.

But now I think back, I didn’t understand what football meant back then. I thought it was just achieving the goal, literally and metaphorically. My goal was to get my name on the list so I could wear the green and gold overseas. But football I now know is so much more than that. Well for me anyway… It’s not just about improving your own game; it’s about being that influential player on but more importantly off the field. Being the player that can improve the whole teams game just from your presence on the field.

At the time, I didn’t know this, I didn’t understand this and therefore I was never going to be this type of player…yet. To be honest I’m still not that player, and I probably wont be for quite a while. Since realising that this should be my goal in football, I understand the credentials for the job, well at least what I think they are. (I’m not going to write them all down, the list is endless.) The reason why I am not this type of player yet is very simple, I’m just not ready. The fact of the matter is, there are way too many variables to know whether I’ll be ever be ready, whether ill ever be that type of player.

I did get my name on that team sheet when I was 15. I’ve managed to get it on that sheet another 3 times after that. I am a far better player than what I was 3 years ago. Yes, my fitness, skills, etc. have all improved because of two things, the goal of becoming that ideal footballer and because of undying love for football.

Football isn’t for everyone, I understand that. A lot of people can’t even fathom the idea of waking up at all hours of the night to watch 22 guys kick a ball around a paddock. I can’t imagine life without it. It is my true love.

This is a quote from a famous Liverpool manager; it pretty much sums up my attitude towards football.

“Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.” – Bill Shankley

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To React or Not to React?

January 24, 2013

Hi, Chris here.

Something I noticed, and it happens on a daily basis to me. Do you get looked at? Wait I’ll explain what I mean, do people look at leg or your arm as you’re walking down the street or in the shopping centre? Are you ever annoyed by it?

It’s been happening to me since I had my accident, which was 22 years ago. I have come to terms with it and I know that it is just human nature and curiosity, but sometimes it really does get to me. Usually it’s just a glance, and when they look back up at me and see that I’ve noticed they get really embarrassed.

But this one man was looking at my walk (limp) from about 100 metres away. He was fixated on it. Then he looked straight at me, we locked eyes and he looked at me with a condescending expression on his face. It doesn’t usually, but this time it just got to me. To the point where I was going to react and say something rude like “Take a picture it’ll last longer”. But I stopped, took a deep breath and kept walking.

I thought long and hard that night. Why does that experience make me feel small or inadequate? Then I thought who cares what he thinks! Everyone has issues and inadequacies that they are not 100% pleased about. By reacting I would be no better than that bloke.

I’m confident and secure in who I am and where I am going in this world. He is one man. There are 10,584,820 men in the Australia. You can only change yourself, you can’t change others no matter how much you’d like to.

I’ve made more changes in my life during the past year than I ever had in my life; my diet, my training routine, my work habits and my financial situation. I feel great because I’m doing something for myself, and I’ve discovered it’s not hard, it’s really not. Don’t let people change your mind; go with your gut, do it. Change something in your life which you don’t think is working for you. It’s exhilarating.

Love to hear about your experiences and responses, let me know.

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CP Football: my journey, Part 1

January 22, 2013

Being only 18 years old, I only have one true love. It’s my passion, it’s my religion, it’s my inspiration, it’s all I ever talk about, it’s the reason why CP4LIFE is here today, it’s pretty much the only thing that is constantly on my mind 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, football.

I have played football now for more than 13 years and I’ve never had more respect for the game. I wasn’t always this crazy about the sport, so I’m going to tell a story about how this came to be.

When I was younger, like most children in Australia, they have a massive decision to make at the age of 5, what is going to be their first sport?

I chose football, not because I appreciated the game, or because I followed some big club in England or because my parents forced me into it, I chose football because of the reason how most children come to a decision, their friends are playing it.

For the next 4 years, my attitude towards was still the same, it was just something to do on a Saturday, but then I discovered CP football.

Now still being only 9 years old, my attitude didn’t change much, but it did give me the incentive to train harder than ever before, because when I turned of age (14-15), I would have the opportunity to represent my state in football.

Still another few of years past by and to be brutally honest, I probably didn’t train harder than I would have if I wasn’t playing football. It still didn’t mean that much to me, football was close to the bottom of my priority list at this moment. More time passed, so say I am about the right age to be picked for NSW team, I was probably training a lot harder then I was 12 months previously, yet my heart and soul wasn’t still into it.

Luck was on my side and I got picked for the team. It was a bigger moment for me then I expected it to be. I had been training with the same boys for 4-5 years, and I still had never played a competitive game with them before, I was excited!

The national championships finally came around and my attitude changed. The reason being is when I hadn’t been picked for the team, I had a lot of doubt whether I would ever be picked (it’s a CP thing, especially around that age to have absolutely NO confidence what so ever, so you doubt yourself a lot…), but now my name was on that team sheet, finally after 10 years of footballing, I had something to play for.

The first match came around and I was a nervous wreck, I was terrified before the game, I had mind-set of instead of trying to play good football, just not to make an error. You think this game would stick out in my mind like it happened yesterday, but when I think back, I don’t remember anything that happened.

I don’t remember what position I played, what team it was, or even the score (although, I remember we won…), the only thing that I can think of when I played my first game for NSW is the thing I was missing most in footballing ability, not skills, not fitness but the love for the game. Even though I can’t remember any of the details of the game itself, I remember seeing my teammates and one in particular, Chris Pyne treating the game like it was a life or death situation, not win or lose.

And that is what I lacked the most in football at the time, my love and hunger for game. The mentality that every single game I play is a life or death situation, so I had only one solution, learn to love the game the way that Chris does, so I did…

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Success, CP and the most important relationship in your life.

January 19, 2013

Ben here;

I’ve been thinking quite a lot lately on what attributes do most successful people have in common. I think I’m quite close to uncovering their secret. The reason I’ve been thinking of this a lot is because of an activity I’ve been recently doing.

It goes something like this: I drive 24min to work each day, listening to the same thing on the radio, day after day. At the same time, I constantly complain about how I never have enough time to do productive things, for example; train more often, read more books, I also enjoy investing in the share market so I’d like to have more time to read annual reports and be able to research companies I’m interested in.

So what I’ve been doing the last week, which I have found to be both quite enjoyable and thought provoking, is to turn off the radio, turn on the voice memo app on my iPhone, and have a conversation with myself for 20min in the morning and then review my day in the afternoon.

Now I understand this sounds crazy, but I truly believe the most important relationship you have is with yourself. In order to release stress and tension, you need to admit your own mistakes to yourself, and also give advise to you. Ultimately, you know what’s best for you; stop surrendering that responsibility to someone else. Only you fully understand your situation.

This ‘technique’ or whatever you want to call it has lead to some very enlightening moments while also allowing me to have some deep and fundamental conversations. One of the most interesting outcomes was the fact I admitted to myself for the first time in my life that I’m glad I have CP. Now this has never happened ever!

The way I see it, is that if you can’t be honest with yourself, who can you be honest with?

It’s also allowed me to analyse and get a deeper understanding of a few ideas and principles I’ve been researching lately.

This was applied directly to my current blog addiction. [EDIT: So far, I've written 8 articles in 6 days!]

I love jumping on a few of my favourite blogs to see if there are any new articles I can absorb myself in, early last week while I was on my lunch break I stumbled across an article:

www.tynan.com/bullshit (Excuse the language).

This article is unreal! It’s as if the blogger was talking directly to me! I realised that I waste so much of my day mindlessly scrolling and stalking people on Facebook that I never talk to. I’m always feeling sorry for myself because I never seem to accomplish anything in the day down to my addiction to Facebook. I think it’s because I’m hoping for another notification to pop up (which very rarely happens) or I might see someone post something interesting (also a rarity).

I find myself trying to think up cool quirky statuses, in the hope I’ll receive some sort of external reinforcement (in the form of likes or comments that will stroke my ego). It’s turned into a vicious cycle.

I’m finding that rather than taking the initiative & responsibility to improve my life and make me happy, I’ve been relinquishing this power to my Facebook friends. If I post a status and I get no likes or comments, it’s a great big dent in my ego. Since I’ve been having these deep thoughts, I’ve come to realise that I’m the only person that can make me happy and a success. I have to take the initiative; to become a better rounded person. A more ideal person.

I always find that I procrastinate if I need to do something that will ultimately benefit me, be it; studying for uni; delaying going into the gym; reading more books; meeting new people. When really the best time to improve my life is now! I’ve found, I’m sabotaging my own progress!

So for the past week I’ve cut my Facebook time by about 90%. I’m trying to read a lot more rather than watching the news on TV, which serves no purpose in making my life any better in the long-term (All that the news is doing for me, (be it in the morning or night), is undoing all the work I had put in to create a positive mental frame for myself, it’s all so negative!). No more!

I’m acting on the thoughts and my instincts straight away, rather than giving myself time to resist, I think that if I can make this shift in all my endeavors it should take me a step closer to being more ‘successful’.

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